


tell me which life to live

by Mayarene Rose (Paradise_of_Mary_Jane)



Series: lives lived, lives lost [2]
Category: DCU (Comics), Heroes in Crisis (DCU Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types, Titans (Comics)
Genre: Angst, DC is a mess, Dealing with the multiverse, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-HiC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 12:21:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17121263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Mayarene%20Rose
Summary: Here’s what Dick finds after he wakes up with the worst headache in the history of all headaches: Donna crying without even seeming to notice, Garth asleep on a chair, looking like he fought an entire alien hoard on his own, Dick’s hair shaved, a bullet wound scar that’s still new enough to be painful at the side of his head, just above his ear.Here’s what Donna tells him: he got amnesia from the bullet wound and was wandering alone in Bludhaven like an idiot, Donna and Garth found him and convinced him to go back, Roy and Wally were shot not two weeks ago and they’re dead.Here’s what he feels: Nothing. Numb. Like the world is covered in a haze of smoke and his mind is trapped within itself. It fell over him like a cold blanket the moment he felt the first flutterings of consciousness, even before Donna told him about Roy and Wally.It only got worse after that.





	tell me which life to live

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently this is a series now? Did not expect that, tbh, but here we are. Garth needs more love, anyway.
> 
> DC doesn't seem to know how their multiverse works either so I'm just going to take advantage of it. I've tried to stay as true to the timeline of the reboot as I possibly could but... it's very hard. Time is broken in comics and we just have to accept that.
> 
> Whole lot more preboot references here, along with some Flash War, and some things going on in comics as of the writing of this piece so I'll leave some notes at the end.
> 
> Anyway, onwards!

Roy and Wally are dead. It feels like that’s supposed to be the end of the story.

\--

Dick dreams.

He dreams of the sound of a bullet shattering against his head, the sound of his skull breaking like a piece of glass.

(Sniper shot. Just above his ear. Eardrum shattered into a million pieces along with a lot of other bones in a shower of blood and torn skin.)

Dick dreams of bodies hitting concrete. Hitting sand. Blood pooling around the head. Broken necks. Broken bodies. Awkward limbs. Eyes closed like they could just be sleeping. Dead bodies don’t look all that different at the end of the day.

Dick dreams of pains. Different kinds. All kinds of pain. Pain is pain is pain is pain. It always blurs together in the end.

Dick dreams of falling. He wakes up to screaming.

It’s the same every night, every time Dick tries to sleep. Every time he closes his eyes, it’s still there. Always there.

(Blood and bone and muscle exploding in a haze of pain and fire. The last thing he heard was laughter. The last thing he remembers is pain.)

He rarely sleeps nowadays but that’s besides the point. The nightmare doesn’t really stop.

Getting shot in the head is only the beginning.

\--

Here’s what Dick finds after he wakes up with the worst headache in the history of all headaches: Donna crying without even seeming to notice, Garth asleep on a chair, looking like he fought an entire alien hoard on his own, Dick’s hair shaved, a bullet wound scar that’s still new enough to be painful at the side of his head, just above his ear.

Here’s what Donna tells him: he got amnesia from the bullet wound and was wandering alone in Bludhaven like an idiot, Donna and Garth found him and convinced him to go back, Roy and Wally were shot not two weeks ago and they’re dead.

Here’s what he feels: Nothing. Numb. Like the world is covered in a haze of smoke and his mind is trapped within itself. It fell over him like a cold blanket the moment he felt the first flutterings of consciousness, even before Donna told him about Roy and Wally.

It only got worse after that.

After she tells him what happened his heart freezes, ice spreading across his chest, keeping the breath within his lungs. Dick finds that he can’t breathe. The cold stings, like a thousand tiny needles piercing every inch of his skin.

And here’s what happens after: Garth wakes up to Donna’s crying and all but tackles Dick back to the bed. Dick feels the ghost of their touch. He feels himself slipping but he also feels Donna’s grip on his arm, hard enough to bruise, holding him, struggling to ground him. He hears Garth’s voice, calling him over and over again, so he manages to stay for now.

It’s not gonna last long but he tries.

“Where are we?” he hears himself ask.

“The Tower,” Donna tells him. “We moved back here after…”

“But how did we--” But he’s stopped by the feel of Donna stroking his hair back.

“Hush love,” she says. “Rest.”

He pushes past her, trying to stand only for his legs to buckle underneath him. There’s a buzzing in his ears. A lot like screaming. Dick thinks that may be him.

Then arms. Wrapped around him. Stopping him though he doesn’t understand why. He doesn’t know how much time passes where the three of them just sit there, breathing, being, while Wally and Roy aren’t. There’s silence. Dick’s head hurts like a nightmare (like the nightmare he can’t escape) and he wants things to be better. He’s struggling to breathe. He’s standing at the edge of panic, at the edge of completely dissociating. Donna and Garth try to hold him back but they can only do that for so long.

He thinks he asks for help but he’s not sure. The grip around him tightens, pulling him closer and closer.

Murmurs. Words. Dick doesn’t know what they mean. Donna lets go and Dick misses her touch almost immediately. Someone guides him back to the bed. Dick tries to feel something apart from nothing. Donna is speaking. Telling him something. Dick tries to pay attention. He can’t. The world is drifting in and out of focus, like a raft lost at sea. There is a lump in his throat. It feels a lot like drowning. There is ice in his veins and his blood can’t find itself anywhere. Garth’s hand is there on his skin, rubbing soothing circles down his back, but Dick doesn’t feel it, not really. He shivers. He says in a hoarse whisper,

“I’m sorry.”

And he hears Garth say, “why?”

“I--” Dick doesn’t know, either. He knows that he is and he knows that he should say it while he still can. He doesn’t know much else.

“Don’t be sorry,” Garth says. “Just work on being fine. We’ll figure it out later.”

Later? Dick can’t really think of a later right now. He can barely understand what now means. He feels lost. He’s not entirely sure where he is though he’s pretty sure someone just told him. He wants to say, _help me,_ wants to say, _I don’t know what to do,_ but the words are caught at the back of his tongue, drowning, buried under the lump in his throat and the panic that wants to take over.

Donna is somewhere, still speaking, but Dick can’t find her. He can’t find anything past the fog in his mind. Garth’s touch is the only thing that feels real. Dick grips his arm in a vice grip.

“Dick.” Garth’s hands. They’re strong and familiar. Dick would know them anywhere. But not really. Dick doesn’t know if he knows anything, really.

He can’t trust his memories. They’re too easy to lose. Like grains of sand slipping through fingers. Too easy to replace. He remembers a life where he didn’t know Garth until he was twenty-two, and remembers one where he grew up with him.

(He knows a life where he never knew the Titans and a life where he knows what it is to feel alive.)

He remembers a life where he ran away from him in fear. Remembers the life where he protected him. Thing is, memories can be manipulated but emotions are constant.

He doesn’t know what he feels. He feels everything and nothing all at once.

“Look at me,” Garth says. “ _Look at me._ ”

Dick tries. He can’t see very clearly. There is a haze of memories playing out at the back of his mind. Lives. So many lives. Lives that were never his. Dick has been dreaming for so long now. Dreaming for so long it felt a lot like living. He’s living now but it feels a lot like dreaming.

He hears snatches of conversations he never had, feels grief for decisions he never made.

(He remembers a dark-haired little girl. Red-haired twins. Two-face’s daughter. Children of Deathstroke. Memories of people he never met.

People he loved. People he loved _so much_.)

A rough shake. “ _Look at me._ ”

Dick forces himself to. Sees purple eyes. A scarred face. Someone he’s supposed to know.

Then, in the space of a blink, he sees someone else. Same but not quite. Same purple eyes but dressed in red instead of blue. A darker scar over his eye. Close cropped curls. Another blink and he’s gone.

Dick doesn’t know what’s real anymore. He just holds onto what he has.

“Garth,” he says. “Garth.”

“Look at me,” Garth says again. “I need you to look at me and breathe, Dick. Please.”

It’s the please that gets him. He’s never heard Garth sound so ragged and desperate, so much like he’s falling apart too. Garth is trying so hard to keep it together so Dick tries too. Breathes in through his nose, lets the air fill the bottom of his lungs, exhales through his mouth. Does it again and again and again. It helps a little but the cloud is still on his mind. His entire body still feels as if its forgotten how to be alive.

“You’re going to be fine,” Garth says. “It’s all going to be fine.”

“It’s not.”

“It is,” Garth says. “You’re fine, Dick. You’re just fine.”

“I’m not fine,” Dick says. “None of us are. Not me. Not you. You’re not fine and I can’t help you.”

He feels Garth fall still. His grip on Dick’s shoulder tightens. He searches Garth’s face. It’s still hard to focus but the stillness of the expression hurts as well. Garth is carefree with his smiles. Easy to be with. He tends to hide his pains away.

“I want to help you,” Dick says. He raises a hand. Puts it over Garth’s. Donna is there too, shaking so hard it feels like she’s about to break apart. She is kneeling right in front of him, arms wrapped around herself again. She’s stopped speaking at some point. She’s too broken for words, for anything other than breaking. Dick doesn’t know how to fix it. He doesn’t know how to fix any of it.

Right now, he doesn’t know who he’s supposed to be. He’s not sure he knows who he is at all.

“You don’t have to,” Garth says, careful. “We’ll figure this out together.”

And Dick closes his eyes. Focuses on Garth’s touch. He wants to reach out to Donna too but he doesn’t think that’s what she needs right now. He focuses on the sound of their breathing. They’re real. Together. Incomplete and on the verge of falling completely to pieces permanently but it’s real. He’s here _he’s here he’s here he’s here._

It’s real. Everything here is real. Dick tries to convince himself of it and fails and fails and fails.

He tries again. And fails again.

He slips. He falls. It’s gonna hurt like hell but he’s here. He lets his friends’ presence catch him. He’s a real person and he’s here. He just has to work on remembering that.

\--

Here’s something Dick’s never told anyone: After Wally appeared in the tower that first time, Dick starts dreaming of lives he never lived. Lives completely separate from the ones he knows were implanted when their memories were erased.

There is something to be said about having two different sets of memories about the two different sets of lives in your head. It’s a completely different thing to dream about things that didn’t happen in either lives. And there’s a lot more to be said about being best friends with someone who didn’t grow up with either of the people you remember being.

Wally meant well but his memory wasn’t erased like theirs were. He was trapped outside of time. He came from a place that was similar but not quite the same. The logical conclusion when it comes to Wally isn’t that he was erased and rewritten into the universe. That’s a needlessly convoluted way of looking at it. The simplest, most reasonable way of looking at what happened to Wally is that he’s always existed. It’s just that he existed in a different world and now he lives in theirs.

There’s evidence to it. Superman comes from a different universe. It’s more possible than how the Flashes try to explain it.

Wally meant well but he was from an entirely different world and it showed.

He knew different kinds of them. Someone older, Dick thinks, probably better than what he could ever be. Wally always seems much older than them even when he doesn’t look it. Something about his eyes. The way he holds himself. Sometimes,past the jokes, past the laughter, he goes quiet, goes still. He’s seen more things, gone through worse.

He never talked about that other world with them. About the friends he lost there. Dick’s not even sure Wally’s entirely figured it out yet. He never tried to make them feel like they had to be other people but he couldn’t help but make them feel like it anyway. It’s there in the furtive glances when he thinks no one is watching; something sad, a little heartbreaking. Worse is the look he gets when he sees them again for the first time after a while: that wide smile on his face and the rapidly hidden heartbreak that comes after because the people he was expecting wasn’t the one he was looking at. Wally sees dead people where they stand.

(It makes Dick want to scream sometimes. _See me,_ he wants to demand, because that’s the Wally he remembers. Those are the Titans he remembers. The ones who tear through all the layers, all the walls, and sees everything Dick tries to hide.

It’s a breath of fresh air. Being with the Titans is the closest thing Dick to breathing and feeling alive and it’s not fair that it may not have been real in the first place. That it’s not real at all for the Wally he knows.)

Wally says that he remembers them as they are but Dick knows that’s not quite true. Their memories match up but the Titans know better than most how easy it is to play with memories. Taking memories leave a scar, a hole in the mind. A phantom feeling for something that will never go away.

(Lives lost and lives lived. There’s a difference between knowing and remembering.

There was a time when Dick remembered nothing but that didn’t stop the feeling of comfort, of irrational relief before the brain that forgot started to kick in, at seeing the Titans for the first time in so long.)

The way Wally looks at him sometimes… It’s terrifying. Like he can do anything, solve any problem. Like he has Superman’s powers. Wally believes in him in a way no one else does, so thick it’s almost palpable. Trusts him with so much and Dick doesn’t know what the hell to do with any of it.

Dick has spent his entire life trying to live up to someone else’s name. He could never tell Wally how much he hated the way he looked at him.

Wally meant well and he hurt in so many ways too. In a way he died and came back to life in a world that wasn’t his. Dick couldn’t truly hate him for it but.

He wants to. He wants to hate Wally for it so much.

Dick thinks he may have left behind a piece of himself on that other world. Part of him will never stop wanting to go back. He’s Dick’s best friend and Dick is selfish in so many ways. Wally is a wisp of light and they tried to hold onto him but they never would have been enough. Dick wants to capture it, keep it for himself, claim it as his, but the truth is… The truth is and always has been clear.

They would never be enough.

He was always going to leave them behind.

\--

Cutting themselves off from the Justice League was surprisingly easy.

Donna moved them back to the tower after Roy and Wally and no one in the Justice League really had the heart to stop them. Really, they have more shit to deal with than to constantly watch over the Titans like wayward children. The Justice League was full of empty threats on that one.They have a big job in watching over the world, not keep an eye over a bunch of heroes who already know what they’re doing.

This is especially true after what happened at Sanctuary.

They’re probably giving them space to grieve as well.

A lot of heroes are grieving after Sanctuary. It doesn’t look suspicious yet if they close their doors, refuse access to anyone who wasn’t a Titan, refuse to answer all communications. M’Gann is supposed to give her reports but it’s not suspicious yet that she isn’t, given the nature of their grief. Some things are not meant to be shared, after all. Every hero understand that. Better grieving than vengeful, at any rate.

(Except Batman. Dick is almost sure that Batman has eyes on the tower and knows he’s there. The fact that there’s only been radio silence for him is concerning. But that’s a problem for another time. Dick would very much like not to think about Batman again for a very long time.)

Tim visits sometimes. His friends Conner and Bart and Cassie are back on the world and everyone’s memories and they’re reforming their old team. Young Justice, they’ll call it. The name brings back a twinge of something not quite familiar but definitely something right. Dick is very glad for it. Tim’s been alone for too long.

When Tim finds out what happened, he’s very furious on Dick’s behalf but he doesn’t talk about it much, which Dick appreciates.

(The first time he came, he was brimming with rage, or as much as Tim could ever be brimming with rage. “How could he,” he had demanded and Dick couldn’t find an answer for him that felt like the right one.

“He didn’t tell me,” he had told Dick and that hurt a lot. “I was away and when I came back and found out what happened… I would have stopped him. I wouldn’t have let him leave you.” Dick hadn’t said anything and Tim quickly hid his anger from him and that had hurt too but in a different way.

Dick took him in his arms after that and just held him. Held him with a strong grip and made sure he wouldn’t forget anything this time.)

He doesn’t talk about Gotham or ask him to come back, which Dick appreciates more. He keeps Batman at bay, distracts him, and brings his friends over to help with distracting the Justice League. Apparently, Tim’s team also has good reason to run from the JLA. Something about Conner being an evil clone of Superman. Dick has no idea what’s going on there but he does tell Conner to go talk to Donna.

It’s always nice to have someone to relate to.

Tim says that Damian’s team would be there too if they weren’t dealing with worse things. Dick appreciates that too. He doesn’t know what the worse things are and he wants to help out if he could but he’s a wreck and he doesn’t want to see Damian to see him like it.

Titans go in and out of the tower. There are others like Lilith and Don and Hank and Dawn who knew Roy and Wally well, too, and they’re dragged down by grief too. Kory stops by too, dragging Kyle Rayner and Jessica Cruz with her. Nat and M’gann keep guard and Vic keeps them updated despite staying in the Watchtower. He’s not a Titan but he’s sympathetic and he can keep a secret. Gar trusts him. The two of them have developed a close bond in the days Gar was all alone. Dick thinks he should get the story out of them someday.

It’s more Titans and their friends together in one place than Dick’s ever seen in this lifetime. He hadn’t noticed how much they’ve grown, how many people consider themselves Titans before anything else. Wally would say that there’s supposed to be way more of them, but he’s not here to actually say it and thinking about what he might say hurts a lot.

And the Titans have finally done away with the official thing bullshit. Dick was appointed leader by Batman and the Justice League and it had left a bitter taste in his mouth. It’s not the way it’s supposed to work. He lets go of leadership like discarding of a dark, wet cloak. He stands straighter, finds it easier to hold his head high. The Titans are more than a team who does the missions the Justice League don’t care for. They’re more than a superhero team, period. It’s good that they’re working on that. Those of them who had known Wally and Roy well let themselves grieve and the ones who didn’t give them their space.

Dick, Donna, and Garth are ghosts in the tower. Lilith is stronger than all of them. She keeps them together, makes sure they eat, tries to get them to sleep. Doesn’t usually work, but they all appreciates the effort. Lilith understands.

Raven and Gar are in charge with their missions, while everyone else helps out. They keep to mostly answering letters, speaking with youth groups, things like that, helping out with support groups. Keeping things in order in their own city. They don’t wander too far away. There are enough of them that they still have a pretty long reach.

There are other ways to save the world. The Titans are arguably better at the other ways than trying to solve problems with their fists. It’s strange that they’ve forgotten that. They fought for peace with violence. They knew better once. They should have never let anyone tell them otherwise.

Garth and Donna take Dick to Roy’s grave on his seventh day back at the tower, when he’s steady enough on his feet and doesn’t feel like throwing up at every single moment.

(Side effect of getting shot in the head and losing your two best friends, apparently.)

Once he can walk properly again, when the grief isn’t constantly hounding on him to fall apart. He knows he can slip so easily but there are other people to think about. They need him and Dick can try to be alright for them.

(Donna needs to be strong on her own, so Dick lets her be. Let’s her do what she needs to do, let’s her be angry and screaming, and hugs her after that. He’s gentle with her but he lets her wander away, stand on her own two feet. And she does the same for him. The two of them know how to be kind without being overbearing. At least with each other.

Garth is a completely different story.)

The three of them hold hands all the way through. The funeral was over more than a week ago but the ground still bears signs of being dug through, earth disturbed so the dead won’t be. The sky is clear but the air still smells of rain; a storm that’s just passed.

Roy’s name is on a gravestone. His birthday, the day he died, linked together by one little line, like it can be enough to contain everything Roy Harper lived for. It doesn’t feel real. Just stone and ink. Nothing to do with the Roy he knew at all. How can it define the hole he left in the world?

“I’m sorry,” he whispers but it feels trite. He hears Roy’s boisterous laughter in the wind, telling him to stop being stupid, and things would be okay like nothing had been wrong in the first place. He and Roy don’t fight often but they have fought. And then forgiveness eases back into them like there was never a rift in the first place. They forgave each other too easily, probably because they understand each other so well.

He doesn’t have the words to say goodbye properly. His mother died before she could give him hers and Bruce deals with death by hurting himself more and Dick already hurts so much. There are so many things he wants to say. They’d left off fighting without making things better. There’s nothing that can make that particular kind of hurt go away.

Donna squeezes his hand like she understand. Garth, on his other side, is entirely too still. There is a line around his mouth that says anger, and a tilt to his eyebrows that says terrified. His eyes are glinting with determination. Dick pulls him closer so that their shoulders are brushing but Garth pulls away slightly shaking his head, apologetically but firmly too.

Dick lets him. It hurts but Garth mourns in his own way and Dick lets him.

“We can bring them back,” Garth says suddenly, interrupting the silence. “There has to be a way to bring them back.”

The tone of his voice, it sends shivers down Dick’s spine.

“Garth…” Donna says.

“Stranger things have happened,” Garth says. “Worse things have happened. _We’ve_ done worse things. People come back all the time. Why shouldn’t they? It’s not right that they’re gone like this. They deserve better.” His voice is calm and even, not a hint of emotion there. Dick thinks that’s telling in itself.

“You know we can’t,” Dick says. “They wouldn’t want that.”

Though that’s not quite true. Dick doesn’t know what they want, not really. Not in this life where Roy and Wally lived entire lives without him and seem to remember it better than they ever could.

(The Roy and Wally he knew existed solely in his mind. Nowhere else. He chose all the parts he liked and kept them for himself, ignored the ones he didn’t. There are a lot of parts he didn’t like, mostly to do with him being an asshole. And for some time, Dick actually managed to trick himself into thinking that things were perfect and fine and that nothing was ever wrong with them. Because in one life, it was true, but he doesn’t think it was the life he lived.

Memories are strange things.)

“Other people get to go back,” Garth repeats. “Why shouldn’t they?”

Dick doesn’t answer him and neither does Donna. The three of them don’t say anything else. There’s a lot left to be said but no words come. They stay for a few more hours then head back to Titans Tower. Garth doesn’t look at them the entire time.

\--

In his waking moments, Dick gets flashes of a life that wasn’t his.

Burning an apartment to the ground. Leaving behind his lair, his costume, cause, _name._ All gone with the shot of a bullet and an explosion of fire. Back pains from sleeping in a cab. Fire so much fire, flowing in and out alongside feelings of anger and betrayal.

(Something close to hate, but that’s too dark a path for him to even try and follow.)

He doesn’t ask about his brief stint as ‘Ric’, doesn’t ask about why he was all alone, doesn’t ask about why no one even tried to find him, not even Bruce. He doesn’t ask why, even though he was close, no one from Gotham cared enough to force him back home. There are some things best left unknown.

He doesn’t think about Gotham for now. For now, he thinks about healing.

(There are other lives, of course, but Dick is doing his best to pretend that they’re just him being crazy instead of the other way around.)

\--

Garth doesn’t talk about it but he’s getting agitated. He’s looking for something they can’t give him in the tower. He’s gone quiet. He wants to run. He wants to be away from them. Away from everything. Away from the surface overall. He wants to do something that neither Dick or Donna or any other Titan would approve of. It’s probably why he’s not talking much in the first place.

Atlantis is Garth’s home. First and foremost, Garth will always return there. It’s the one where he is who he truly is.

And Atlantis holds different laws from the surface. It’s something they don’t talk about, him and Aquaman. They live in a different world, one that’s harsher than the surface, as kings and not-quite princes. They look at things differently. Garth cares for their own laws and respects the fact that the Titans are mostly surface dweller.

Dick remembers the conversation at the cemetery. Garth’s voice asking over and over again, _why can’t they come back?_

And the thing is, it’s not a desperate plea to the unknown. Not for them. They can do it and Garth knows this. They can find a way to do it.They know people who’ve done it before.  Nothing is really impossible if you’re the kind of person who regularly hangs out with several alien gods powered by the sun and a police force with the power to alter reality. That’s not the problem.

Dick isn’t wholly sure what the problem is. Roy and Wally are gone. Them not being there anymore is a stab to the chest or a bullet wound to the head.

They deserve better. More than anyone else, Dick thinks they deserve better. But he also knows that bringing people back from the dead isn’t just something you do. That there is something fundamentally wrong with it, that it never turns out the way they want. There’s always a price and it’s always one that no one can pay. Part of Dick wants to talk to Garth, tell him he understands, find the words to say _I miss them too_ and agree and find a way to find them back and have everything go back to what it was except it won’t fix anything. Roy and Wally still would have died. Dick still got shot in the head. Memories and lives are so easy to change but the scars they leave behind don’t go away.

Garth knows this even if Dick can’t say it. He can almost see Garth physically retreating from them as things settle more and more. Sees the smiles become more and more still and practiced. Garth is good at practiced smiles. Better than Dick. Days pass and they get more and more used to the pain of grieving and Garth is… is doing what he always does and trying to disappear, thinking that no one will notice him leaving.

Dick notices. It’s kind of his job to notice. Donna notices too. She’s good at noticing that kind of thing. She’s doing a lot better these days. She doesn’t talk much and hasn’t cried since that first day but Dick likes to think she’s doing better. Something about the light in her eyes.

“Talk to him,” she tells Dick.

“I don’t know how to,” Dick says.”You do it.” Donna just raises an eyebrow at him and Dick instantly feels guilt washing over him. Donna’s been holding them together through sheer force of will for so long now. She was the one who dragged Dick back to the tower and forces Garth into the living room every other day. Dick figures she deserves a break from it all.

But still.

“I don’t know how not to hurt him,” he amends. Dick and Garth together have this way of not talking about things, two people who are too quiet for their own good. They either chatter aimlessly or just not talk at all. Or are frankly too honest with each other and end up hurting or helping too much.

“That’s never stopped you before.”

“He’s already grieving--”

“So are you.”

They all grieve in their own ways. They’ve all known this to be true. Garth’s way of grieving is just more proactive and Dick is falling apart. Donna’s is something in-between them.

“He’s going to get himself killed,” Donna says. “He’s going to go too deep and you know it.”

Each moment Garth retreats more, Dick knows it’s because he’s hurtling towards something they can’t bring him back from. Dick never claimed to understand magic but he knows the look in Garth’s eye when he’s planning something particularly big and dangerous.

Dick is lucky because he has friends who can still pull him from the edge of something terrible. They all were. Garth is different. Garth is Atlantean, a child of the sea. A tempest, fierce and untameable. Trying to hold him back, trying to stop him from throwing himself head first into so much pain and chaos that he disappears into himself, is trying to take away a part of him.

Garth is the storm, coming and going as he pleases. They won’t be able to stop him. They never have before. They can only be there when he finally comes back.

“Everything hurts so much,” Dick whispers. “Everything. I want them back Donna. What if--”

“You know what he has to do, Dick,” she says. “You know what he’s _going_ to do and you know what doing it will do to him. We can’t lose him too. _I_ can’t lose him, too.”

Donna’s expression is a little bit broken, still. Dick wants to make things better for her. But there’s nothing to fix because it’s not his choice to fix.

(Their hearts are broken by grief but they are not broken for grieving. They all deserve better. They handle it in their own ways.)

“We can’t stop him,” Dick says.

Donna is quiet. Her fists are clenched at her side, chin tilted up in defiance.

“I know,” she says. “Hera, do I know. I wish it was something we could save him from.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Do you know how we got you back here?” Donna asks. “You were ready for a fight but I told you about the things we’ve done together. Every single thing I could remember about us at that moment I told you.”

“It worked.”

Donna shakes her head. “It did,” she says. “Except I’m pretty sure half the things I said never happened.”

“What?”

“I remember having a son, Dick,” she says. “A husband. I remember when the Justice League stripped us of our costumes when we got someone killed. None of that happened but I remember it. You do, too, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Dick says. He remembers it like a dream, foggy and disjointed. The dream that makes your heart pound in your chest with how real it is.

“The way Garth talks about Roy and Wally and bringing them back… He’s looking for something that isn’t _here._ And we have to make sure he comes back,” she says. “Make sure he comes back because his life matters more than dead men’s.”

“Those memories brought me back,” Dick says quietly. He’s looking for a way to say _it’s real. it feels like the only real thing in his life._ “Maybe they’re a way to bring them back too.”

Everything he knows about the Titans, all the love he feels for them, is hopelessly tangled with memories that doesn’t belong to them. That might not have been true before Wally but it’s true now.

“Maybe,” Donna says. “I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t lose Garth, too. If we can’t stop him--”

“Then we help him,” Dick says. “Maybe this is things finally working out for us.”

“Things have never worked out for me,” Donna says. “Everything has a price and _I’m tired of paying for it._ ”

“It’s going to get better, Donna,” he says. “I swear to you, it’s going to get better.” He presses a kiss to her forehead and holds her hand. She leans into his touch and doesn’t say anything.

They stay like that for a long time.

\--

Dick remembers two lives: a life where he spent his teen years being best friends with Roy Harper and a life where he and Roy barely knew each other and he never cared enough to know the disaster of an archer who drank way too much. Sometimes he wonders which one is real.

He and Roy never talked about it, either.

They had a good relationship near the middle, all light laughter and sarcastic back talk. Then, all the resentments they never talked about, all of Dick’s sins, that entire life they ignored comes up and the lie they’ve built falls apart.

Dick never apologized. Roy never gave him the chance to give it.

There are too many things they never talked about.

Now there’s no chance to fix that.

\--

Dick waits for the tower to be empty to find Garth and try to talk to him. He wraps himself in a sweater and wanders the tower until he finds Garth, taking his time. The tower’s big and Dick really doesn’t to have this conversation.

He finds Garth on the living room couch, watching some bright cartoon. Dick sits down beside Garth. The cartoon goes on with some odd version of Robin running around with what he assumes is Kory, based from the orange skin. Dick has no idea what it is. He hasn’t watched TV in… ever, really. Never could sit still enough for it.

“What the heck are you watching?” Dick asks. “And why?”

“It’s funny.”

“It’s weird.”

Garth shrugs again and goes on watching. Dick watches with him. He’s more relaxed than Dick’s seen in a long time, less like he’s holding his breath all the time. Maybe the cartoon is good for him. Or the empty tower. Garth usually has weird tastes. He never liked crowds, either. Dick lets it happen. It’s good for both of them.

Dick wants to hold onto the moment of peace, wants to make it last forever. He wants to stay here, trapped in a single breath, watching some cartoon with one of his best friends, in a world where things aren’t perfect but they aren’t destroyed yet, either.

It’s the calm before the storm and Dick wants it to last for as long as is possible.

It’s four episodes later when Dick finally gathers enough nerve to break the silence. “How are you doing?” Dick asks. “I feel like we never really asked.”

“I’m fine,” Garth says. It took him a while to answer, like he was thinking a lot over his answers. Like he had to choose his words carefully. His gaze is still firmly on the cartoon, on the cascade of bright colors dancing across the screen. “I’m always fine.”

Dick presses his lips together.

“I _am_ fine,” Garth insists.

“You’re not very good at lying, Garth,” Dick says quietly. “Not to us. Not to me.”

Garth lets out a low sound that might have been a laugh in another life. His body is too still. He seems to be holding his breath.

“I just need to go back to Atlantis for a while,” Garth says. “It’s nothing important.”

“You always do that,” Dick says. “Tell me what you’re really going to do. Stop running away when things get hard.”

“Coming from you?” Garth scoffs. “Really?”

Silence. The cartoon continues to buzz on. Dick tries not to let it hurt. It’s not like he didn’t deserve it or anything. He fails but he’s pretty sure it doesn’t show on his face. Garth reads it anyway.

“Dick,” Garth says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean--”

A laugh, hollow. “Yes you did,” he says because Garth did. It hurts but it’s also the most honest Garth’s been with him in a long time. He’s not hiding under careful words, not hesitating, actually saying what he feels. Dick tries to take it as a good thing. It hurts but it’s good.

Garth sighs. Runs a hand through his hair. Dick smiles weakly. Garth returns it. The two of them are exhausted of playing pretend. The five of them were too good at it. Dick wonders if it was just the way they were or they learned it from each other, so ready to give up themselves to take care of the rest. “I did,” he says. “No offense but…”

Dick shrugs. Garth nods and there’s silence for another while. It’s not the end of it but it’s a discussion for another time.

He and Garth fall quiet. Garth’s good at quiet, good at disappearing, coming and going like the tide. He’s always been better at disappearing than anything else. Dick wasn’t wrong about that.

Best they can do is wait them out. Most of the time, he doesn’t say anything. Most of the time, he pretends that nothing is wrong. Most of the time, he leaves anyway and doesn’t come back for a long, long time.

The best they can do is to still be there when he comes back and needs them again. Garth comes and goes like the tide. The Titans have never gotten tired of waiting for him.

(There are times too, when he gets angry, angrier than Dick or Roy or Wally or even Donna could possibly be. When his words turn sharp, meant to hurt and destroy them. Trained as a diplomat since he was a child. He’s good at using words to his advantage. He never says anything that isn’t true and that’s probably the worst thing he could do to them.)

“I need to go back to Atlantis,” Garth says. “Just for a few days, a week at most, then I’m coming back I swear. I found something that--”

“That what, Garth?”

“I don’t think Roy and Wally are dead,” he says. “Or if they are, it’s not supposed to be permanent.”

“Don’t,” Dick says sharply. “Whatever you found don’t even dare. I’m not letting you. It’s not right. We can’t just bring them--”

“Why not?” Garth asks. “Why can’t we bring them back? Everyone does it all the time--”

Dick feels a painful clenching in his chest. The phantom pain of a wound he never had. “Garth what are you _talking about_? No one’s died and come back to life. That doesn’t just happen.”

“It does,” Garth insists. “Superman and Hal Jordan and Barry Allen, Raven, Joey--”

“They never died, Garth.” Dick puts a hand on Garth’s shoulder. There’s a wild look in his eye. He’s breathing hard and heavy. He jerks away, shaking his head.

“Of course they did,” Garth says. “It happened. Barry Allen--”

“Garth,” Dick says gently. “That’s not our world. You remember it but it’s not ours.”

He remembers it too. Remembers countless nights holding a grieving Wally apart. Helping him through his first months wearing his dead uncle’s costume, taking his name. Dick sees it in his dreams, so vivid it’s almost real. But he knows it’s not. Because the Barry Allen Dick knows never died. Dick knows this. He’s spent night after night pouring over every single file he could find, trying to confirm his dreams.

Barry Allen never died. Dick just remembers a world where he did.

“Wally did something to us,” he says. “We remember things but… None of that’s real, Garth. Not for us.”

“What does it matter?” Garth demands. “I remember it and you remember it. It happened and everything was _fine._ Why can’t it happen here?”

“Garth....”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Garth says. “I _know._ I know, alright? Wally did something to us and we see… I don’t care. They might come back, _they might not be dead,_ and I’m taking that chance.”

“You don’t understand what you’re doing,” Dick says. “You don’t know what the consequences--”

“I might be the best person who knows,” Garth says. “This is the kind of magic I’m good at Dick.”

Garth is the tempest, something more powerful than he likes to broadcast. He’s never told them in detail what it is he can do. There are some secrets surface dwellers aren’t privy to, not even to them. There is some things about Atlantis they just won’t be able to understand.

Garth never spoke of it and they never asked. It feels like a wall separating the two of them now.

“What do I have to say to make you think about this?” Dick asks. “Garth please.”

“Who says I haven’t?”

“Garth…”

Garth lets out a sardonic laugh. “What do you want me to say, Dick? I’m not even sure I knew Roy and Wally. I don’t know how to grieve them. I want them back. I want to actually get to know them without those damn memories.”

Dick doesn’t say anything. Words are weapons and Garth is the best out of all of them on that regard. Sometimes, it’s almost like he doesn’t even notice that he uses them so effectively.

“You’re thinking the same thing, aren’t you?” Garth says. “And so does Donna, and so did Roy I bet when he was still alive. Wally was the only one who actually believed that bullshit about being friends forever. We’ve only really known each other a year, at most. Give or take a few months if you add the new memories. That’s not enough for the lifelong friends we keep trying to trick ourselves into believing and you know it.”

“Garth stop it.”

“It’s true,” Garth says. “I feel like I’ve known you my entire life but _it’s not real._ It can’t possibly be real and you know it. Even with the memories we’ve known each other what, two, three years? The love we remember is for someone else.”

The cartoon’s credits are rolling. Silhouettes of several different Titans are splashed across the screen, as well as Titans Tower. A high pitched song is saying over and over again, Teen Titans, like it’s a big deal. It used to be. Now it feels like shattered glass no one’s willing to pick up.

_When you’re in trouble you know who to call._

“I love you,” Dick says. “Donna loves you. Roy and Wally loved you. And you loved all of us. That’s real. That is real, Garth.”

“How do you even know it’s real, Dick? It’s based on a lie,” Garth asks tiredly. “How do we know any of this is real and not just some witch manipulating us all over again.”

 _Of course it’s real,_ Dick wants to shout. It can’t not be real. He remembers the life he lived without the Titans, full of emptiness and complete despair. A life that wasn’t a life. He was dead, literally dead, sacrificing himself for the world because he didn’t have people who had his back.

(There was Batman but Batman would always put the mission over everything else and Dick wouldn’t have wanted him any differently. There were his brothers but it’s Dick’s job to save them and not the other way around.

He didn’t have anyone who belonged just to him. Who he trusted to save his life as much as they trusted him with theirs.)

“It’s real,” Dick repeats. “It’s real because we feel it.”

“And that other life?”

“That was real too.”

Other versions of them. Versions who’ve known each other for longer. Versions who’ve loved each other for longer. They remembers lives they never lived as much as the life they did live.

Dick got shot in the head and forgot who he is. He regained his memories and realized he never knew that person in the first place.

Garth lets out a breath, the tension draining out of his shoulders. “Then where the hell does that leave us?”

Dick turns to him so he can meet those purple eyes fully. He wonders about the other heroes who chose to lean on him so much, saying he’s one of the stablest heroes out there, a shoulder to cry on. Don’t they see how lost Dick is? Didn’t they see the tangled mess that is Dick’s life, full of masks upon masks upon masks. The real person somehow got lost under all that weight and Dick doesn’t know if he’s ever going to get him back.

Garth knows this. Garth always has. He never says it out loud but he does. So much of him is still a mystery to Dick despite knowing him for so long. He just hopes he says the right thing for once in his life.

“We’re here right now. We’re here and it hurts,” Dick says. “Who the hell knows how our lives work? Nothing makes sense, Garth, and I don’t think it’s ever going to. We can try to explain it all we want but it doesn’t take away the pain.”

Garth is quiet. He’s not going to cry like Donna or Wally might have done. He’s not going to spiral into self-destruction like Dick or Roy, either. He’s Garth and he goes quiet.

Most of the time he just leaves.

Garth holds his gaze and he doesn’t say anything. Dick smiles softly though his chest feels empty. He puts a hand on Garth’s shoulder, squeezing gently.

“You don’t have to stay,” he says quietly. “Take as much time as you need. Away from us if that’s what you need.”

“Dick…” Garth closes his eyes. “I want a chance to make what we had real. I won’t go too far, I swear. I have you guys to hold me back, don’t I?”

“I can’t stop you from looking at all, can I?”

Garth searches his face for another moment. Dick doesn’t have to keep up the smile but he does because it’s real anyway. Part of him is happy. He wants Garth to feel happy and safe and okay. Dick loves all the Titans so much. And sometimes loving someone means knowing you’re not the person they need love from right now.

He shakes his head quietly.

Dick steels his gaze. He takes a deep breath. “Alright then,”  he says. “So tell me how to help you.”

In another life, in another name, he might have said something different. But Nightwing was taken from him by a person with his soul but nothing else. Dick is tired. Dick is grieving. He can’t lose anyone else.

Garth looks at him. Smiles, grateful. He tells Dick what he can do.

Then, he leaves.

\--

A month later, Garth returns, pale and haggard.

He says, “They’re not dead and I know how to get them back.”

And Dick feels the first fluttering of hope blooming in his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> \- You can only try to understand how, exactly, Wally exists in Prime Earth, to a certain extent before throwing up your hands and saying 'fuck it,' especially since the writers of different titles can't seem to agree, either. What I went with is that he came from the preboot universe, broke through the speedforce, and was written into the memories of other heroes. Which means, he never really existed on Prime Earth at all.  
> \- Tangentially, Prime Earth Titans have so many bad experiences with memory manipulation that I'm surprised they're not automatically suspicious of it. Then, Dick got amnesia and just... stop messing with their memories, DC. Give them a break.  
> \- I literally cannot find a single reason for a guy as controlling as Bruce Wayne to let his son wander around the most dangerous city in the US without his memories but that's a discussion for another fic.  
> \- Yes. Teen Titans: Animated Series exists in this universe. Don't ask me how or why.  
> \- Superman has died on Prime Earth but that's a complicated mess that involves him merging with New Earth Superman. Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, Raven, Joey Wilson (does he even exist here?) have not.  
> \- If you follow the reboot timeline, the Titans can't have possibly known each other for more than two years (probably closer to less than a year tbh) before their memories were erased which... not really lifelong childhood friends material :/ That is literally the entire reason for me writing this fic.
> 
> That's all, I think? 
> 
> I plan to do the PoV of the entire Fab Five. Next one up is Garth!
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](https://discowlng.tumblr.com) if you want to chat :D As always, your comment give me life.


End file.
